I used to be terrified of public speaking. I now really enjoy it. When I go to a conference, I like to present and share my thoughts on the themes. It is a great way to meet people.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve adapted my presentation from the traditional “here are my slides listen to me talk” to a more back and forth interactive sessions. My new motto is “make it fun.” In fact, I think you’ll be much more likely to remember what I share, and who I am, if I “make it fun.” Because boring is boring and at conferences with of sessions and hundreds of people, most people forget more than they remember. By “making it fun,” people are more likely to remember who you are, what you do, and think of you for opportunities to collaborate on like minded projects — or in other words, make more fun.

Here are some ways I’ve “made it fun” while speaking at conferences.

A simple one. If you are still in the “here are my slides” mode of delivery, add a video. Don’t worry about fancy embeds in PowerPoints, and don’t count on the wifi (you can download that YouTube video easy enough) — bring it with you on your computer and a thumb drive. Play it where it makes sense in your presentation. Video is very powerful, always the same, gives the audience a break from you, and you a break. Good video can really pull in an audience that has sat through a lot of people “speaking at them.” Right now, I’m using this 3 1/2 minute video explaining 30 years of the Neil Squire Society. Don’t forget to bring speakers and wiring to connect to sound systems.

I’ve used PollEverywhere a few times now to interact with the audience and connect the online and offline worlds. I can pose a multiple choice questions and participants can vote using twitter, texting or a webbrowser. The results of the group are shown as a bargraph to the audience. These are used all the time in webinars to get a sense of the audience, and provides a solid measurable benchmark on the room on topics. I’ve used this mostly when speaking at educational technology conferences as the audience is super connected techy people, most recently in at ETUG for a gameshow trivia presentation — it is a group version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.”

Continuing my gameshow love, I did a Family Feud style presentation. I did this with an audience I’ve presented to multiple times. Instead of, once again, “this is what we do” presentation, I framed it as “do you remember what we do?” This flips the presentation and haves them drive it, while I keep score. This is complicated to use well but I was able to do this a couple of times by following this Family Feud Powerpoint with no mouse blog post and rehearsing a few times. Not for the weak of heart or one with fear of computers.

Don’t want to use fancy tech? In a presentation I made to an audience of 500 sponsored by the Government of Alberta, instead of showing stats, I asked audience to guess the stats. I was in the “after lunch on the last day” slot, everyone appreciates anything that will keep them awake after an overload of information and usually, a carb-packed lunch. An example question, “What is the disability rate in Canada” is posed, and I work through the audience getting them to guess the answer. I respond “higher” or “lower” until we hit it. Nothing fancy, just a wireless microphone to help the entire audience hear the participants.

Finally, one of the easiest for me to perform but most impactful was just using twitter. When I presented at Pecha Kucha New West Volume 1, I had some help from CHIMP, an online donation platform. Everyone that used a specific hashtag in a tweet at the event were given $20 to give to any charity of their choice. It was an easy way for people to become socially engaged beyond my allotted 6 minutes and 40 second presentation.

There are certainly better speakers than me, but I promise to always make it fun. The next time you are given the opportunity to speak at a conference, I encourage to think how can you engage the audience to speak and share at your session. And please, make it fun. I ate a lot at the lunch and am feeling tired.

I was pretty blown away by Kei / @BoldLove – http://boldlovecommunications.com/. I’ve seen a lot of speakers over the last few years, but she really threw it down. Swearing, hooting and hollering… but it wasn’t all party. There was a (queue Kei) shitload of great information she laid out that helped people get up to speed.

Again, this event reconfirmed my volunteerism with NetSquared Vancouver – I get so much more than I give.

I typed as quick as I could with my mini bluetooth keyboard as Kei gave us the 411. I have 3 significant events for my non-profit this year… and am just a bit terrified. I am the guy that forgets that people like to have dessert when I invite them for dinner. So for me, this was invaluable, and I’ll be living off what I documented for the year (and hopefully still be employed next year).

Here are my notes, straight outta evernote. I blame typos and any lack of meaning on Kei’s rapid fire pace (not at all my inability to type or comprehend). ;-)

Marketing Mix – It’s called a “mix” because it has to be a combination of PR, Advertising, Inbound, Social Media; you cannot rely on just doing one and expect success.

PR / Publicity – what are you training your spokes people to share

Visually – how are you sharing

Advertising – do you have a budget

Inbound strategy. What are you writing / sharing?

Social Media

Key to pre-marketing – build before you sell

Make your guest feel like insiders

Share your PR success

Social Proof – can see who is attending on Meetup, facebook events

Create native content. Example: The content of your posts must take into account the context of the platform within which you are posting them: Why do people go to that social platform? How do people consume information in that platform? What do they like to do in that platform?

“No sale without the story; no knockout without the setup. ” Gary Vaynerchuck

People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

They are expressing their values when going to your event.

Sponsors and Partners

Start with Why > How > What

create a Win-Win proposal

Why is it a good fit?

How will they be perceived?

What’s in it for them?

Do your research

Set up a meeting

5 touchpoints before they get a yes

Then at least 7 back and forths before the signature

Listen more – ask them questions. How can we add value to them?

What can you leverage when approaching sponsorship

Brand building

logo recognition

advertising

social media exposure

Business Building

Employee Engagement. Example: free block of tickets

Onsite activation

Exclusive Access

Sponsorship Deck:

Visual + Understand the sponsor

Who you are: Values, achievement, metrics

Press and Testimonials

Target Demographic

Benefits

The Ask – this is where your budget comes in handy

Maybe there are some inkind things

Write a report to sponsors – tell them how event went – your integrity is on the line

Thank them and be creative

Influencers & VIPS (including media)

Invite them personally

Perks and Benefits before & after the event

Send sample product, and more to come if they show up

Cultivate a relationship

Media

Think story angles – pitch to their beat / speciality

Attention-grabbing headline

Deadlines – don’t bother when under deadlne

Media train your spokesperson

Secure coverage before, during and after your event.

Lead Time – how much further in advance to you need to get in a particular issue. Example to be in August, you need to pitch 3 months in advance.

I’ve been thinking about the way I receive and process information. And I think writing about it will help.

I’m working to conform to the inbox zero, though I fall off that bicycle every now and then. Right now, the latest problem with my web-consumption is how I interact with things that require some more in-depth reading and research. I often come across reports or videos or guides or whatever…. stuff. Good stuff. Stuff worth going through, but not stuff I always have the time for. So I email it to myself at work.

And then it sits there, for when I have the time to read it. It sometimes sits there for a while. A LONG WHILE.

But I do get there. Maybe. Perhaps I save a pdf onto a harddrive. Or my worst sin, copy a URL into a Windows folder, and then make a word “notes” file? If I am doing a deep topic dig in a short time, I’ve made a notes .doc for a dozen papers and URLs, copy in all the juicy bits, and use endnotes for documenting source. Dropbox has made this easier across platform and devices, but still is lacking.

I’ve tried other ways to catalog and keep things. Words like “favorites” are on many webservices – RSS, twitter; watch later on YouTube; give something 5 star on my iTunes library, etc etc etc. Every one of these things has a “Good stuff” way to flag, but leaves me with two problems

That good stuff is all over the place. In a browser. In an app. On a device. Printed out with highlighter marks on some random pages. I have to go find it, remember where it came from, and hope it doesn’t get retired (Google Reader), die (harddrives), or get upgraded (smartphone).

The other problem is the good stuff sometimes needs to be marked up, and those good stuff bins don’t always allow an easy way to do it. If I sit through a 20 minute video once, I want to remember exactly what part I need in the future. If I find a useful stat in a 180 page pdf, I don’t want to search that paper again for it. And I certainly don’t want have to remember what channel I “favourited” it on.

I need a space for my good stuff. I think Evernote is the solution, here’s a few reasons why.

Cross Platform. As an app, it works consistently on all devices – Windows, Android, iOS. I spend time on all three, and I’ve spent way too much time sending stuff from one to the other. Usually via email.

Easy markup with searchability. Jotting thoughts is easy regardless the media type, which was critical. But the search-ability is amazing. Tags help group, but truly amazing is the scanning from a photo you shot. PDF annotations. Notes regarding webpage. I’m playing and learning here, but it looks super robust.

Even for that great text resource I didn’t read but looked full of gold? It doesn’t sit in my inbox until “when I have time” and stare at me for days at end. It’s placed in a proper bin that, even if never read, is scraped for when a future question needs answering and the resource is forgotten. A “google” of just my good stuff, my own magic crystal of fuzzy memories.

Easy to feed, especially using IFTTT recipes for evernote. Add starred email, share via my Android phone, favorite tweets, read laters in feedly, watch laters in YouTube.. It seems to hook into everything. I didn’t think about the recipe for Google Calendar notes – but it makes perfect sense. It takes the good stuff out of it’s respective container, and puts it with all my good stuff. Even if for some reason I can’t find a way to elegantly push something into evernote, you can still email into evernote.

I’m optimistic. I’m trying the 30 day free pro trial of evernote over the holidays. I have a few weeks to look at stuff, and hoping Evernote easily keeps that goodness together.

My final live event to attend was the Men’s Aerials – Medal event. This is held at Cypress, and is the only Cypress event where the standing room tickets (which I had) weren’t cancelled, as it’s on a different part of the mountain.

I wanted to do a mountain event as part of the Olympics, but I didn’t want to go all the way to Whistler. Even the trip to Cypress is a long one:
• > 30 min skytrain
• > 15 min seabus (plus the wait for it)
• > 30 min bus ride up to Cypress (plus the wait for it)
• > 30 min walk from bus drop, through security, and into venue.

The waits weren’t long anywhere, but it’s a good two hours in, and two hours out. Because it was a medal event, there were only twelve jumpers, and they each jump twice, so the whole event takes under an hour.

While waiting for the event, we watched Canada Women’s hockey win Gold on the big screen. That ties us for #1 in Gold Medals.

It seemed like a great chance to see Canada win a medal live with 3 of the 12 jumpers being Canadian. And when I found out one of the jumper’s name is Kyle from Calgary, and I was attending the event with my cousin Kyle from Calgary, it seemed like destiny. And after the first set of jumpers, Kyle Nissen was in first, meaning he would be the final jumper.

But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. He went for a much simpler jump than the others, broke form, and had a rough landing, scoring low in his final jump. Obviously, everyone wanted to see a Gold and we left disappointed. When I got home, I saw interviews with the jumpers, and you could see how heartbroken all three Canadian jumpers were that they didn’t win the Gold at home. Tough for all involved, but congratulations to all the jumpers – it was a great experience. The fact that we didn’t freeze, worked our way into the grandstand, and could check “mountain event” off the “to-do” list, it all worked out quite nicely.

Yesterday I headed to the volunteer accreditation center, and picked up my blue jacket, outfit, and also some swag it came with. I’m technical support for the Paralympics in Vancouver, and quite excited that I have an opportunity to help make the Games happen.

My badge is pretty sweet, it’s all access to everywhere – all events, athlete’s village, media centers, etc. This likely as I’m technical support, and who knows where I’ll end up fixing something.

Also in the bag of goodies (it’s gotta be near $500 worth of clothing and gear) was a pass to get a free journal. You have to pay shipping still ($12), but you can customize the cover, including the picture and title. Go to this website, (https://memories.vancouver2010.com/cart/Category/61-journals.aspx), and then use the coupon code “JOURNAL2010”.

On Tuesday the 23rd, I went to three hockey games. This makes six Olympic hockey games in total. And the middle one was Team Canada, which for me, is something I can cross off my life-to-do list. I’ve taken buddies, brothers and sisters, and of course, my wife.

• Come in your country colors. The bigger, brighter, and crazier your get up, the better. Costumes are encouraged!

Swedish Helmets

Swedish Twins

• You can get cheap hockey tickets from scalpers, especially in a game after Team Canada plays. I had my brother-in-law join me last minute for a game, and bought a single seat three rows from the ice for $40 (where as my ticket 3 rows from the back of arena cost $80 + fees). We all went down and sat together.

• The food in GM place is brutal. I’ve done the nachos, hot dog, foot long hot dog, $4 snickers bar, cinnamon stick, pretty much everything they are selling. The only hope is the $5 bag of mini donots – they are quite good – but you certainly can’t eat them all. I recommend heading to the Beijing / Plaza of Nations area for pregame grub.

• You are best to head out with a minute left in a period for the bathroom or beer. You can do both in seconds, instead of 15 minutes.

• Have a buddy grab a table close to stadium to greet you after the game. Having 20,000 people leaving Canada Hockey Place at once looking for food and beer, it’s your only chance to get a table. We had a good setup for my triple header, where friends that weren’t coming to that specific game had the table and we looped back in-between games. Different people met us there during the day, and Dix became our official party site.

• If you have back-to-back games, leave the stadium. Security hasn’t taken me more than 15 minutes, even for the Canada game, and that way you can get real food, cheaper food, cheaper drinks, and just stretch your legs.

From here forward, I’ll be watching games on big screens, pubs and at home – but to be in the stadium, even for smaller countries, is an awesome experience. Go Canada!